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The Place of North African Literature in African Literary Canon

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The Place of North African Literature in African Literary Canon Greener Journal of Language and Literature Research Vol. 6(1), pp. 1-10, 2020 ISSN: 2384-6402 Copyright ©2020, the copyright of this article is retained by the author(s) https://gjournals.org/GJLLR The Place of North African Literature in African Literary Canon Oluwatoyin Umar Plateau State University, Bokkos Plateau State University, Bokkos ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article No.: 030620047 This study is an evaluation of North African literature, aimed at Type: Research contributing to the few available discourses on the rather “silent” voices of writers from North Africa in mainstream African literary studies. Within the theoretical framework of New Historicism, the study examines the influence of Arab nationalism, colonialism, as well as literary trends and Accepted: 18/03/2020 movements on the development of modern North African literature. The Published: 20/05/2020 study provides textual analyses of selected works of Driss Chraibi, Tayeb Salih, Nawal El Saadawi, Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Abdelkader Alloula, Kateb *Corresponding Author Yacine, Ahmed Shawqi, Al-Qasim Al-Shabbi and Muhammad Al-Fayturi, Oluwatoyin Umar which are available in English translations from Arabic or French. This E-mail: funtofe3@ gmail. com work identifies themes of anti-colonialism, cultural identity, quest for Phone: 08060870823 freedom, leadership problems and patriarchy, as recurring themes in North African poetry, prose and drama. The study traces and locates the place of North African literature in African literature, and concludes that Keywords: North Africa; North African literature is both Arab and African. colonialism; Arab INTRODUCTION African countries. Mazurui, quoted in Soghayroon has argued that Sudan is an “African country in a racial North African literature developed from sense and an Arab country in a cultural sense .... For different traditions and experiences of the countries many of them, Arabism is a cultural acquisition rather that make up North Africa. From the linguistic, religious than a racial heredity” (7). As it is with the rest of the and cultural standpoint, this literature includes works continent, European colonisation, particularly French from the Middle East. Anissa Talahite posits that the occupation of the Maghreb countries of Algeria, literature of the region offers a perspective that makes Morocco and Tunisia, has had great influence on North it part of Arabic literature, which includes the Middle African literature. East (39). The literature of North Africa is made up of Many of the North African writers have works from the three Maghrebian countries; Algeria, published works under the three genres. Some of them Morocco and Tunisia, as well as the literature from have attained international recognition. Naguib Egypt, Libya and Sudan. These countries share a Mahfouz, Author of Cairo Trilogy (1957), was the first common ethnic, cultural, linguistic and Islamic identity Arab to win the Nobel Prize for literature; he is a that has significantly distinguished them from the rest leading Egyptian writer. Assia Djebar, Nawal El of Africa. Sudan is one of the most unique of the North Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi are among North Greener Journal of Language and Literature Research, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-10, 2020 2 Umar / Greener Journal of Language and Literature Research Africa‟s most influential internationally acclaimed which is based on the past or a foreign culture that is female writers, known especially for their extensive unrepresented or underrepresented is at best, a matter fictional works on the plight of the Muslim-Arab woman of interpretation on the parts of both the writer and the in a patriarchal culture. The literary works of these reader. Secondly, the very existence of any text in a writers often lead to several problems for them in their culture changes the culture it reflects, raising an societies; for instance, the feminist ideologies of the awareness of vital issues and helping to bring about feminist writers clash with their religious backgrounds, change (Grudzina 253). For any new historicist and have resulted in bitter criticism of the writers. reading, there are some essential questions to ask; for Generally, many North African writers have had to put instance, what event occurred in any given writer‟s life up with censorship, imprisonments and death threats that made him or her who he or she is? What or who from government and Islamic fundamentalists. Some has influence and affected the writer‟s world view of writers, such as Algerian playwrights Abdulkader life or philosophy? What are the writer‟s social Alloula and Taher Djaout have been assassinated. concerns and what did he or she do about them? What There is an enduring view by many North was happening at the time the book was written or in Africans that they belong to pan-Arabic confederacy the time in which it is set? Who are the powerful and rather than to African socio-ideological block who are the powerless? What is similar or different (Olusegun-Joseph 223). In this study therefore, the about the perspective of the book to others written in term „Arab‟ shall be used interchangeably with North that era? In the light of these questions, the study African. evaluates the subject matters of the selected texts Yomi Olusegun-Joseph has identified that against relevant backgrounds. This approach has been European “...Orientalist remapping of North Africa as selected for this study because answering the largely belonging to the „Middle East‟ rather than Africa questions posed by this literary theory in the works of is because of its predominant Islamic cosmic leaning the selected writers is central to understanding trends and Arabic socio-cultural predisposition” (220). He has that have shaped North African Literature. also argued that colonialist representation of Africa in European literature, which resulted in black oriented cultural and nationalistic reactions, has contributed to NORTH AFRICAN PROSE the marginalization of North Africa in African literary criticism (224). Bentthar is however of the opinion that Fiction as a genre emerged as an influence by the origin of African literature as the subject of European narrative form on the Arabic folk narratives. academic discipline was construed along racial terms, The earliest North African novels are mostly with “blackness” as a literary category (quoted in autobiographical. The authors saw their individual life Olusegun-Joseph 224). Olusegun-Joseph has stories as part of the collective changing social and described this postulation as one that has a gap in that historical experiences of their people (Talahite 43). it fails to recognise that black racial affinity possessed by some North African writers has not exempted them Driss Chraibi from being left out in mainstream African literary criticism (224). Achebe has pointedly called attention Driss Chraibi was a Moroccan Author whose novels to the significance of the complexities of the African deal with colonialism, culture clashes, generational scene in any definition of African literature (27). conflict and the treatment of women and children. He The writings from North Africa have been is considered to be the father of modern Morocco considerably influenced culturally, politically and in novel. He is critical of both Islamic and western terms of language of expression by Berber oral cultures. The Simple Past (Le Passe Simple) was traditions of pre-Arab inhabitants, as well as Arabic published in 1954, two years before Morocco gained civilization, and contact with Europe. Talahite‟s its independence. It is an autobiographic narrative. It summation is that “It seems more appropriate to speak was translated from French by Hugh A. Harter. In this of North African literatures rather than of one literature” novel, the protagonist, Driss Ferdi revolts against his (39). While some of the non-English North African tyrannical father and flees to France. He dislikes both literary works are available in English translations, they his father and the social hypocrisy. Driss‟ mother is mostly consist of writings in Arabic and French. The tyrannised, subjugated, silenced and secluded by her thematic preoccupations of the North African writer husband. She seeks refuge in suicide from the include cultural identity, colonialism, European oppressive traditions and the patriarchal expressions misrepresentation, hybridization, poor leadership, the by her husband. Driss Ferdi is confronted by a quest for societal and individual freedom, political phenomenon called the “Thin Line”. The Thin Line corruption, oppression, Islamic fundamentalism, war, speaks to Driss as he tries to understand who he is. In disillusionment, the Palestine problem, gender reality, there is a thin line created by western values relations and patriarchy. that disconnect Driss Ferdi from his root. The story illustrates the plight of the generation of Moroccans who are a product of French colonial policies and THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK influence, which leave them with confused identity. The novel also portrays the oppressive conditions New historicism has been chosen as the under which the women live in an oppressive tradition. theoretical underpinning for this study. According to Both mother and son seek emancipation in different the new historicists, any understanding of the truth ways but the question that remains is „do they find it?‟ Umar / Greener Journal of Language and Literature Research 3 Heirs to the Past (Succession Ouverte) is a This is a most unlikely match because Zein, though a novel
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